Nine and Death Makes Ten

by Carter Dickson

  "—And didn't touch the cards in the purser's safe," supplied Lathrop, pouncing. "Why? If he wanted one of those cards why didn't he bother the safe?"

  "If we ever wanted," grinned H.M., "the last, the ultimate clue which indicated that the guilty feller was Jerome Kenworthy there it is.

  "He didn't look for 'em in the safe because he didn't know they were there. And he was the only passenger who didn't know that. Looky here: think back to Wednesday morning. All of you, except Kenworthy, were up on the boat-deck when the purser told us what he'd done with the passengers' cards. Kenworthy only appeared later. He thought they were in those cardboard files which had been left out in the open, all very invitin'. So he ransacked the files, and let the safe alone. He pinched a handful of passports at random in order to cover the theft of Benoit's forged passport. But he didn't get the card he wanted.

  "Thinks I to myself: you'll have another go, my lad. So I let it get noised about that I'd taken a much worse conk on the onion than I had. I let it be known I had the cards in my possession. You know what he did. As for makin' up again and puttin' on Benoit's uniform, the feller was desperate. He was watched: that was why he had to set up the submarine alarm when he raided the purser's office. He'd now tried every dodge. He was up a tree. But it was a foggy night. If he put on Benoit's spare uniform, and anybody caught a glimpse of him, everybody would believe the witness had a bad case of nerves and was seein' ghosts after the best sea-farin' tradition. He had a shot at it. And," said H.M., his face growing tired and bitter and rather white, "I had a shot at him. That's all."

  There was a pause.

  It was bright winter sunlight outside. Reflections of it on the water played through the open ports and trembled across the ceiling. They were moving up the Channel. Since yesterday, when they sighted the Seven Sisters along the English coast, it had been known that the port was London. Headed for Tilbury Docks, the Edwardic moved through quiet waters toward home.

  "There's just one thing," muttered the purser, shaking his head, "that I still don't understand. Kenworthy's seasickness —when he traveled with us before—"

  Again H.M. peered at him over the tops of the spectacles.

  "You're a stickler for detail, ain't you?" he inquired. "If I got to make what's merely another guess, I'd like to bet that his seasickness for the first few days on the other trip was caused chiefly by the tail-end of a roaring, swinging hangover. They feel exactly ali—hurrum, that is, so I've been told. I can certainly tell you, though, that he used that reputation of his with good effect. Everything he knew about this ship: his own reputation, the position of the cabins, your acquaintance with fingerprints: had all been carefully worked into his plan. He's rather a clever feller, y'know. That's what they thought about him in the Diplomatic."

  "Clever?" echoed the purser. "He's a perishing genius!"

  "And yet," said Valerie, "he seemed so nice."

  "Sure," agreed H.M. "Many murderers are. That's not a paradox or a piece of cussedness, though it always seems to startle people. It's cause and effect. Women think they're nice, so they get into trouble with women. And then they have to get out of it. You've heard such a story before. You'll hear it many times again."

  The soft-footed and confidential smoking-room steward moved across to their group.

  "Destroyer going past outside," he confided. "If any of you would like to see it?"

  There was a concerted rush for the doors, leaving behind only Valerie, Max, and a glaring H.M.

  "That's gratitude," said H.M. "Phooey!"

  "We're all grateful to you," said Valerie, shading her eyes with her hands. "Especially, I am. But—well, a more horrible and hypocritical nine days I don't want to spend in a hurry. And I've got to go back with this ship, too. They won't allow me to land in England without a passport."

  H.M. glowered at her.

  "Who says you won't be able to land?" he demanded. "I'm the old man, ain't I? It may take me a day or two to wangle it, that's all. Curse it all, if Lathrop can come askin' me to do the same thing when Kenworthy pinched and destroyed his passport . . . throwin' everything overboard, just as he threw his weapons ... then I can do a little something for you, can't I?" He looked at Max. "Do you want her to land?"

  "If she doesn't," he said, and meant it, "I'm going back with the ship too."

  "I thought you were beastly," said Valerie. "You thought I was beastly. Maybe we still both think so. But if they don't let me go ashore, and you go, I'll jump overboard and swim after you." And she held her hands to him.

  *****

  They went quietly into the lounge when they heard the ship's orchestra tuning up. A Sunday quiet held the ship.

  Commander Matthews, holding the Bible clumsily, stood by the improvised rostrum . and watched his passengers assemble. Again he read the Twenty-third Psalm; and read it, Max thought, very well for old Frank. There were no hymns. There was no prayer. But, as the orchestra struck up at a signal from Commander Matthews, they sang Ood Save the King, And never had those words been sung more strongly, never was more sincerity poured from the heart, than when those strains rose to the roof, and the great gray ship moved up the Channel; and, steady as a compass-needle in death and storm and peril and the darkness of great waters, the Edwardic came home.

  1 Hans Gross, Criminal Investigation (Third Edition: London, Sweet & Maxwell, 1934) p. 192.

  2 It is only fair to state here that all three of Commander Matthew's points were perfectly correct, as was later to be discovered—C.D.

  3 Clues and Crime: the Science of Criminal Investigation, by H. T. F. Rhodes (John Murray, 1933), pp. 105-107.